Discussions By Condition: I cannot get a diagnosis.

night blindness.

i know that i am night blind, but am unable to get the correct diagnosis for this. few doctors say its congenital, but then i never had these problems since birth.

problems with eye sight.dark adaptation: after switching off lights at night. even in daytime when i walk in from sun into the room. night vision: driving at night is difficult. cant see poorly illuminated roads.at times cant see road divider etc.walking out from the room outside at night, difficult to see for a long time.depth perception: at night cant percieve depth properly. steps, stones, undulations etc appear as flat at night and in low light conditions.day time: when i walk out from indoors outside into the sun, glare is too bright. takes some time to adjust to the bright light. same after seeing directly towards any bright light like cfl, focus lamp etc.glare: cant see properly in presence of any glare off the tv, comp screen. also the glare from glass top table etc is distracting/harsh on the eyes. similarlt the glare from headlights from oncoming traffic. and after seeing into the galre, cant see properly for sometime.headache and pain in the eyes: frequent haedache. regular pain in the eye.

the medical reports: my ERG shows abnormal rod response.perimetry, kinetic perimetry, OCT show no defect. there is some pigmentation of macula. and nasalization of vessels in discs.

the story. i did not have this condition since childhood. i am in the army and have undergone rigorous night training. i never had a problem a couple of yrs back. i was a good firer and could fire pretty accurately even at night. i have done a lot of night training exercises, and never had any problms during training.

but over the years the condition has worsened. can environmental factors have a role to play in this.

i have been posted in altitude in excess of 14000 feet for more than 2 yrs. out of which i was at an altitude of 17000 feet plus for abt 4 months. most of these places were snow covered for most of the time of the year.thereafter i was in a hilly place around 6000-7000 feet in altitude for abt 3 yrs and then back to altitude of 12000 feet and snow covered for another 2 years. now, for the past year and a half, i have been posted to a big city.

while i was in the mountains, at those places, oxygen was rare, and snow abundant. also , most of the times we used to have tinned food, and lacked proper nutritional diet. and being in the army, had to move around a lot, and the work pressure/stress was tremendous. because of the job, i had to move around a lot at night, and thats why, over the past 3 years and thats when i realised that slowly the night vision was deteriorating.

after the first stint in 14000 plus altitudes , my night firing standards went down a bit, but then i neglected to lack of adequate practice. then when i went to 12000 feet plus for the second time, slowly and slowly i was having more and more problems in seeing at night, and more so in moving around. i would see less, take a long time to adjust to changing lighty conditions and lacked depth perception totally at night.

this is not genetic, thats what i feel , coz i have started experiencing the problem for the last 3 yrs or so, where as i have been in the army for abt 14 yrs now, and never had a problem for all these years.

pl help me, i am about to lose my job, unless i can convince that the condition is due to the environmental hazards i was exposed to.

1 Replies:

Look up progressive retinal atrophy, snow blindness (nearly always says USUALLY, so there must be some snow blindness that is long-term) and glare disorders. You know, I have these symptoms when the doctors dilate my eyes for eye exams. Is the pupil ok? Is that the perimetry studies? Some drugs will dilate the pupils (belladonna) which is ancient medicine. Anyone know anything new?